CHAPTER XII
IN THE FAR NORTH
It was June, the 'leafy month': Nature was dressed out in her newest and freshest of robes, and the homes of her feathered children were peopled with tiny birdlings, all agape with hunger and curiosity.
Through the shady Brattlesby Woods, and along the hedgerows, stealing softly, stepping cautiously, crept Jerry Blunt, with his empty sleeve flapping against his right side, and as he went he peered here and there where leaves grew thickest. In his wake followed, on tip-toe, Alick Carnegy and Ned Dempster, all three intent on seeking for young bullfinches.
When Jerry Blunt ran away to sea from his native village, Northbourne, with his soul athirst for adventure, his body was furnished with as many limbs as other folk. Little did he dream that the golden future he panted to grasp would make of him a cripple. As time went by, and he became a full-grown man, Jerry had his fill of hairbreadth escapes, his last exploit of all being to join an enterprising American expedition got up in the name of science to find the North Pole. This venture, one of many, proved the most unfortunate of all for Jerry Blunt. Through his own heedless carelessness in refusing to listen to the advice of his experienced betters, he neglected a severe frost-bite; in consequence, he lost his arm, which had to be amputated by the ship's surgeon. After this catastrophe, Jerry as a man on that expedition was worth little or nothing. So he returned, in course of time, to his native place, 'like a bad shilling,' said Northbourne—and with an empty coat-sleeve.
'The right arm, too, worse luck!' was all the sympathy he got, and Jerry, therefore, began to look round for himself. He knew it was imperative on him to do something for a living to help out his good old mother's feeble efforts, and to keep a roof over their two heads. He set his wits to work to puzzle out a way. Without a right arm he was of little or no use in the fishing-boats, which constituted the sole trade of Northbourne. So fishing was out of the question.
Now people don't go the length of Franz Josef Land without picking up a few odds and ends of information. Therefore it was not long before Jerry did hit upon a trade, and it was one thoroughly to his mind. From his boyhood he had been a passionate lover of the open, and Mother Nature had shared her secrets with him in no niggard fashion.
He was tolerably well acquainted with the ways and the haunts of his winged neighbours, and could, perhaps, have 'given points' to many a scientifically educated naturalist. And it came to pass that he bethought himself of certain valuable hints he had got anent the artificial training of the inhabitants of the air from an astute old Frenchman, one of those curiosities to be met with but rarely, whose minds are human museums—treasure-houses in which are stored scraps of varied knowledge.
'You may keep school, my lad,' dryly commented his mother when she had carefully digested Jerry's plan, 'but you won't find it easy to keep scholars.'